Page 75 - The Ancestry of Francis Bryan (1770-1863)

In the case of Francis' descendants, as well as Peggy's descendants, the endogamy is mostly related to a version of geographical isolation. Their children stayed close by, for the most part, and married others who lived in close proximity in Grayson County, Virginia as well as Alleghany and Wilkes Counties in North Carolina. These counties are all adjacent to each other, despite being in other states.
This is a particular challenge for genealogists researching family trees. Instead of discrete tree branches you wind up with gnarled vines that are very hard to untangle.
I have this particular tangled mess on another part of my family tree. The endogamy from these ancestors is related to geography and also religion. They were Swiss/German Mennonites who emigrated to Pennsylvania and lived in close proximity.
BACK TO THE PROJECT......
I had a few hypotheses for this particular project. Shelley did a remarkable job of visualizing them in the graph.
1. I was interested in confirming my family's relationship to William Bryan, Sr. and Margaret Strode.
2. I was interested in confirming Joseph Bryan and Morgan William Bryant as brothers to Francis Bryan. Are Joseph and Morgan THE Joseph and Morgan mentioned by Clyde Bryan Eldridge in her family history? Is Margaret Strode Bryan the mother of Francis Bryan? And the mother of Joseph and Morgan?
3. Finally I was interested in finding out if Margaret (Peggy) Bryan was a full or a half sister to Francis, Joseph and Morgan. ThruLines suggests that she is a half sister. If she is a half sister then she would NOT be related to the William Bryan and Margaret Strode descendants.
On the next two pages I show the graph and explain the rationale behind the color coding of the matches. The coding system was a way to separate the match clusters based on my three hypotheses.
The results of this project confirm these hypotheses with a fairly high probability. I understand that there are limitations to these results and I do not take them as a 100% confirmation.
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